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Moving to Florida

The U.S. Census ﻿Bureau reports that 566,476 people moved to Florida last year, making it the number one destination.

Second on the list, another no-income tax state, Texas where 524,511 people relocated.

New York had the largest outflows to Florida, while California did to Texas.

The trend to move from high tax states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut picked up momentum after the implementation of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The legislation doubled the standard deduction for individual income taxes and initiated new limitations on itemized deductions.

Most notably it capped state and local tax deductions at $10,000, meaning residents in high tax states can no longer deduct all state taxes from their federal returns.

Most newcomers are settling in the Tampa area.

Hillsborough County recorded 38,359 residents from other states and 14,393 individuals from abroad.

Palm Beach County was the second most popular relocation spot, with Orange County third.

Orange saw an additional 36,897 domestic movers – and another 20,476 from abroad.

Keep in mind, Orange is also home to the states wealthiest zip code (34786) where the average annual income tops $100,000.

Percentage-wise, the Florida counties with the highest number of new residents from other states or abroad are Okaloosa, Monroe, Santa Rosa, Escambia and Sumter.

Yikes. I'm a guilty immigrant to the state also. Still, I'll miss the days when orange meant mostly groves of citrus trees. Soon and very soon we may resemble old Europe:

A footnote to this. In 2018 Democrats were enthused by the huge number of Puerto Ricans fleeing hurricane Maria to Florida, who would turn the state blue at last. Something over 100,000 as I recall. They lost, but it was much closer than it should have been, especially for governor.

Now we're talking about an influx of over a half million people. I don't know how many will be reasonably conservative, fleeing high-tax states as they are, and how many will be logic-challenged progressives, fleeing to red, bringing the blue.

I once saw an article, a year or three ago, about a gnarly progressive couple who moved for job reasons out of the urban north (NYC?) to a new community in Florida. They found to their surprise over the space of a year that their politics changed, that social comity, clean environs, and elbow room produced in them an optimism that surprised them and rebuked their ideology. I'd love to see that piece again.

But I have no confidence that experience is common, unfortunately. The passionate lefties I know down here show no sign of redemptive introspection, judging from conversations and social media posts.

I consider Florida in 2020 a toss-up that shouldn't be.

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.... We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.” —Saikat Chakrabarti, then AOC's Chief of Staff, explaining the Green New Deal for the hard of hearing.

"We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them." —CNN's Don Lemon, showing how to stop demonizing people.

Yikes. I'm a guilty immigrant to the state also. Still, I'll miss the days when orange meant mostly groves of citrus trees. Soon and very soon we may resemble old Europe:

A footnote to this. In 2018 Democrats were enthused by the huge number of Puerto Ricans fleeing hurricane Maria to Florida, who would turn the state blue at last. Something over 100,000 as I recall. They lost, but it was much closer than it should have been, especially for governor.

Now we're talking about an influx of over a half million people. I don't know how many will be reasonably conservative, fleeing high-tax states as they are, and how many will be logic-challenged progressives, fleeing to red, bringing the blue.

I once saw an article, a year or three ago, about a gnarly progressive couple who moved for job reasons out of the urban north (NYC?) to a new community in Florida. They found to their surprise over the space of a year that their politics changed, that social comity, clean environs, and elbow room produced in them an optimism that surprised them and rebuked their ideology. I'd love to see that piece again.

But I have no confidence that experience is common, unfortunately. The passionate lefties I know down here show no sign of redemptive introspection, judging from conversations and social media posts.

I consider Florida in 2020 a toss-up that shouldn't be.

It's the same pattern again. They move from places they're ruined to bring ruinous policies here "because this is how we do it in New Jersey."

"What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer."